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Dell PowerStore vs NetApp E-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
227
Ranking in other categories
All-Flash Storage (3rd)
Dell PowerStore
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
215
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (4th), NAS (2nd), Enterprise SAN (1st), All-Flash Storage (1st), NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (1st)
NetApp E-Series
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (14th)
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
reviewer2304864 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vmware Windows Senior Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Resilience has supported proactive management and secured audit readiness across multiple sites
The resilience in Dell PowerStore benefits my company from an auditing perspective because we know we have that resilience in place. I see Dell PowerStore playing a bigger role in the future because we are starting to use it more, and that is pushing it. The biggest return on investment for me when using Dell PowerStore is scalability. Scalability is key. I can amplify that scalability is the biggest return on investment because we have redundancy between two sites; if something goes down, we have to manage it, but we want to do it proactively.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
High-throughput storage has supported real-time video surveillance and long-term archiving needs
Regarding scalability, I think there is no problem. While there is always room for improvement in any product, to my knowledge, NetApp is a visionary company that enhances product features consistently. They actively respond to new requirements and technology changes requested by customers, improving scalability, management ease, features, and introducing progressive software releases, patches, and upgrades. Scalability does depend on model selection, with entry-level systems being cheaper but able to scale to a certain level, while greater scalability requires higher-end models. For example, NetApp E-Series includes the E600 and EF600 for enterprise-class storage. The FAS series includes models such as 1K, C190, C30, and C70, demonstrating how NetApp evolves based on customer demands and responds proactively to future requirements in storage technology. From my perspective, I believe any improvement could involve adding another model between the existing entry-level and high-end options in NetApp E-Series since there are presently only two models. This simplicity in offering may help customers, but an in-between model would provide options for those needing mid-range solutions, making NetApp competitive in that space. The FAS and AFF series certainly have more model options based on customer needs and costs, whereas NetApp E-Series needs to expand beyond two choices. Regarding error handling in NetApp E-Series, because it is a cost-effective but not an intelligent storage solution, the error handling is not sufficient. The system is reliable, but its management is basic as it runs on firmware. In contrast, the FAS series includes numerous tools and software for error handling, providing better troubleshooting support. Therefore, while NetApp E-Series offers reliability due to its cost-effectiveness, there is a trade-off in terms of error management capabilities.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The scalability is good."
"It saved a lot of space, as far as physical space in our data center."
"The stability is very good. I've done destructive testing on it and never had any type of storage outages from it."
"There was a dramatic improvement in operating costs just as a result of the environmentals and space, let alone the cost of the unit itself."
"Pure Storage FlashArray has helped decrease the total cost of ownership because we know what the cost is going to be every year; we don't get any hidden fees or upgrade fees, everything is included in the price."
"Pure support is very proactive, they monitor our infrastructure in real-time, so they respond before we even open a ticket."
"It's very fast, easy to use, and the cloud-based management is good."
"The management features are well organized and they have a very good dashboard."
"Dell PowerStore is very simple to implement, and its user interface is very simple."
"The impact of Dell PowerStore on our clients' organizations or my organization in terms of performance and operational efficiency is positive, as Dell PowerStore itself is super easy to manage for the customer, which is great for our customers, and we manage to educate a lot of customers with Dell PowerStore, so they can install those themselves."
"My experience with deploying Dell PowerStore was that the installation was straightforward."
"My company found the tool to be really easy to use, expand, and manage."
"Dell PowerStore has one GUI in terms of how to use it, integrates very well with the data protection suites and the cybersecurity side, is a storage platform that allows efficient data access, and makes upgrades very easy to do."
"The management portal is particularly user-friendly. We can access it easily, and the management software is not complicated."
"As a primary storage, it has all the features that our customers need, with only minor tweaks or enhancements needed here and there."
"Its flexibility is valuable because we have had some moments where we had to adapt, and it has been quite flexible."
"The product is easy to use."
"Customers go for the E Series if they need backup storage because it is cheap."
"If we select the best use case for NetApp E-Series based on its intended purpose, I would rate it a ten."
"The overall experience has been positive."
"My customers are satisfied with the performance."
"The Snapshot feature is actually widely used; it is a feature that only NetApp E-Series has and it is quite good."
 

Cons

"Pure Storage support could be a little better."
"If they could make it cheaper, that would be something."
"The pricing and licensing of Everpure FlashArray is a problem because Everpure is considered more expensive than competitors."
"It was not proactive communication."
"The one major gripe I have is that there is no snapshotting enabled by default on the SAN."
"Price is about the only thing that's wrong with it."
"We would always like to see higher performance, and lower pricing is always better."
"The only minor issues that come to mind are that, every once in a while, a hard drive will go bad. Also, the solution should be cheaper."
"Dell PowerStore is an unfinished product compared to the HPE systems because it is relatively new."
"Even though most customers have four-hour support, it sometimes takes two days for parts to arrive when I would expect it the next day."
"The previous version of Dell PowerStore we used was easier to use compared to the current one. They have made it more cumbersome to handle, although it still works. It has become more complicated to manage."
"The networking was difficult and complicated. It took as long to configure it correctly for the networking, as to roll it out."
"I have realized nothing exemplary from using Dell PowerStore, except hat the user interface is clunky, and we've had issues with that."
"However, Dell PowerStore is not the right solution for every situation."
"The initial setup was a little bit cumbersome. We had a bit of an adoption process internally. It wasn't immediately straightforward on day one."
"The NAS part is very poor. It's very basic. Even Dell EMC has said that to us. We are waiting for version 3 of PowerStore for that. This must be improved and it is in the roadmap."
"NetApp should add more production lines to the E series so we can make flexible solutions more easily."
"Getting through first level to second level takes two hours minimum."
"Regarding error handling in NetApp E-Series, because it is a cost-effective but not an intelligent storage solution, the error handling is not sufficient."
"The solution must provide more training courses."
"With NetApp E-Series, when we are running active-active NAS4, sometimes due to either an issue or a bug, we experience failures. At least twice yearly, we have seen this issue. When it occurs, we lose critical systems such as MQ."
"Though the performance is there, if NetApp wants to be competitive with the others, it must improve their business continuity."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost-wise, it's been very effective."
"It could always be lower, but it's okay."
"It is not the cheapest one out there. We're paying yearly, but I'm not 100% sure."
"The price is too high."
"I don't know the exact cost but it's around $1,000."
"We are finding the TCO of flash to be lower than SSD implementations."
"The licensing is $100,000."
"Pure Storage has not helped us to reduce our licensing costs."
"The solution is expensive."
"HCL Tech has a TLA with Dell, so in terms of price point, we are very competitive. Based on my experience, the cost of Dell PowerStore for around 500 GB of capacity is very competitive compared to any other platform in the market."
"The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are pretty decent. It's pretty competitive."
"The software features are included in the pricing without any additional purchase requirements."
"In terms of licensing, my organization has Dell Technologies End User License Agreement (EULA), but I don't know exactly how it works, though it is a big bundle of licenses for Dell Data Domain, Dell EMC Unity XT, Dell PowerStore, Dell ECS, and all such kinds of storage arrays."
"The pricing structure and licensing model of Dell PowerStore are very good and I like it. We chose it because it was reasonably priced and met our requirements"
"When we compared it with the other solutions, the pricing of PowerStore was equal. The pricing is good."
"The rate is always too high. Nobody likes paying for it. I have not seen a client yet who says that the price should be higher. Initially, people look at it, but when they see what the benefits are, it is a no-brainer. We can give them good pricing at the outset."
"The price is reasonable for NetApp E-Series."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business69
Midsize Enterprise37
Large Enterprise157
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business70
Midsize Enterprise43
Large Enterprise103
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I do not have any improvements at the moment; I like how it is. I have nothing to add about needed improvements.
What do you think about Dell EMC PowerStore? Is it actually a new product?
PowerStore is flexible, scalable, simple, and performant with market-leading economics for a wide range of legacy and...
How does Dell's EMC PowerStore compare with its EMC Unity XT?
Dell EMC PowerStore is a unified storage platform that has the added benefit of being scalable. The automated managem...
What's the difference between DELL EMC Powerstore and Powermax NVMe?
Dell PowerStore is an all-solid-state midrange storage system. It has many internal elements taken from other Dell of...
What needs improvement with NetApp E-Series?
Regarding scalability, I think there is no problem. While there is always room for improvement in any product, to my ...
What is your primary use case for NetApp E-Series?
We sell NetApp E-Series as engineered machines like FlexPod, which is used where high throughput and native storage p...
What advice do you have for others considering NetApp E-Series?
I work with VMware products, including VMware server, ESXi, and my experience is on vCenter Server, ESXi, virtualizat...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
PowerStore
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
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Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerStore vs. NetApp E-Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
897,297 professionals have used our research since 2012.